Just lost the love of my life

It was suddenly last Friday and totally unexpected. We were married for 43 wonderful years. I have stayed at my brother's since the funeral on Tuesday and will return to our apartment tomorrow.

 

I am so sorry for your loss. You will find help and understanding here. Be kind to yourself. I thought I would find it difficult to return to our home where my husband’s things were as he left them. Neither of us knew he would not be coming home. That was the hardest part for me. Oddly, it is the place where I feel the most safe, even though my protector is not here. The comfort of the memories somehow seems stronger than the emptiness. Take your time - this is your journey, at your pace.

 

Thank you jmd. Those are wonderful words of comfort. I was alone in the apartment for four days before the burial and as noted will be going home from my brother's tomorrow. He is a two hour drive so it's not like I can get up and see him but we speak all the time.

Know I will go through a rollercoaster of emotions and it's too soon for any semblance of what will become normalcy. I'm hoping chats like these will help me during the day. If it wasn't for this Corona thing many of us would be able to go to support groups. There is one in my area that I wrote to but understand they too are on line for the moment. But at least they are being held.

As with you, this was unexpected. My wife fell and broke her ankle. She was on dialysis and I now know she was suffering from an infection. We both felt she would be home after rehab but another infection settled in. Still, though scared was told not to worry. But she would get lethargic and needed to go back to the hospital from the nursing center. She was coming along though the day she was discharged I found her sleeping quite heavily. Then was again alert. But next day in nursing home she was sleeping heavily again though all her vitals were strong. We had a ten minute visitation and she was sleepy. Two days later got the horrible news she stopped breathing and they were trying to resuscitate her.

But she was not scared of dying because neither of us expected it. And understand she was asleep when it happened.

Thank you for letting me lean on you as you go through your grief too. Some people make it seem they never get better. I hope that won't be the case for me as other counselors said it will.